Claire McCaskill on brink of unlikely comeback

ST. LOUIS — This wasn’t how Claire McCaskill planned to spend the final weekend of a long and grueling Senate campaign: Laying to rest her 84-year-old mother, Betty Anne, who had blazed a path for her in politics and been by her side since her first run for the statehouse three decades ago.

It was the latest show of resilience by a Democratic senator who three months ago had the look of a surefire loser — before she helped engineer a self-destructing Republican opponent and allowed for the most improbable comeback of the Senate election cycle.

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The witty, sharp-tongued senator is leading her GOP challenger, Rep. Todd Akin, heading into Election Day, thanks largely to his “legitimate rape” remark which shook the GOP establishment in August and has continued to haunt him into the final days of the campaign. But polls show Akin has narrowed the gap in the closing week as Show Me State Republicans — and perhaps national Republicans — rushed back to his side and bolstered a last-minute $2.8 million ad blitz.

Democratic Public Policy Polling’s final Missouri survey Sunday had McCaskill leading Akin by just 4 percentage points, 48 percent to 44 percent. A recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch poll had her up by just 2 points.

“In this last year and a half, as I have traveled this state extensively for this campaign, every stop I’ve made the first thing anyone’s said to me is, ‘How is your mom?’ It would give a girl a complex,” McCaskill told about 200 mourners at her mother’s memorial service Sunday at the stained glass-lit Sheldon Concert Hall, just a short drive from the iconic St. Louis Gateway Arch.

As congressional candidates across the country dashed for the finish line, McCaskill spent most of Saturday and Sunday with family preparing for her mother’s life celebration, which included sunny hymns by a 50-person Baptist church choir and was attended by a who’s who of Missouri political royalty — Blunts, Carnahans, Gephardts and Gov. Jay Nixon. McCaskill held no campaign events Sunday, but neither did her opponent, a conservative Christian who observes the holy day.

Instead, Akin, a six-term congressman, spent Saturday rallying supporters and volunteers across the state, stumping with conservative columnist Star Parker at stops in Kansas City, Jefferson City and a Christian high school in his congressional district just outside St. Louis.

His campaign “is based on an idea of ordinary people, people who’ve gone to work, tried hard, tried to take care of their family and had some hard shots,” Akin, visibly choking up, told about 25 people at an 18-minute whistle stop in Jefferson City.

“Some of them have lost jobs, some of them hear from the doctor the word ‘cancer.’ Some of them lose somebody in the family. And they have to get up and keep going. … Just regular people, not the ones who are high and mighty and tool around Washington.”

That was the message he had wanted Missourians here in the Bible Belt to hear: the compassionate 65-year-old father and grandfather he wanted them to know. Instead, a week after he won a three-way GOP primary, he ignited a political firestorm by telling a local TV station that the female body has ways of shutting down a pregnancy in cases of “legitimate rape.” The Republican establishment abandoned Akin within hours.

Readers' Comments (43)

Christians, on election day have a "throw the bums out party", don't vote for Obummer (the de facto Anti-Christ who advocates for infanticide), VOTE FOR MITT ROMNEY. There is only one bum in this election and that's the current occupant of the White House (Obummer). The other bums are mostly minions of Obummer so they are one in the same, that includes Claire McCaskill.

When you go to the polls remember thes words from Akin, Mourdock and Ryan.

In the event of 'legitimate rape' and you are unable 'to shut the whole thing down', 'God intended' you to get pregnant. now under their watch if you have an abortion, you will be tried for murder and get a longer sentence than you rapist. Now if you carry the child, the rapist could have visitation rights. Because that is what 'God intended'.

ladies when you into the voting both think about this for you and you daughters.

When you go to the polls remember thes words from Akin, Mourdock and Ryan.

In the event of 'legitimate rape' and you are unable 'to shut the whole thing down', 'God intended' you to get pregnant. now under their watch if you have an abortion, you will be tried for murder and get a longer sentence than you rapist. Now if you carry the child, the rapist could have visitation rights. Because that is what 'God intended'.

ladies when you into the voting both think about this for you and you daughters.

MISSOURI, WE WILL BE SO PROUD OF YOU, IF YOU DO COME THROUGH WITH HEARTS OF GOODNESS AND NOT LETTING ONE MISSPEAK CAUSE AMERICA TO LOSE BIG WITH MORE DEMOCRATS, WHO ARE UTTERLY DESTROYING THIS NATION! COME ON, MISSOURI...COME ALLLLL THE WAY THRU FOR THE SALVATION OF THE NATION!

Will teabaggers ever learn that the key to keeping their poll numbers high is to never utter a single word? It's only after people hear what unhinged nutbags they are that their campaigns get into trouble.

Just keep waving that flag, dry humping your Bible and keep your big, woman-hating trap shut and the rest will take care of itself, patriot....

Ya know, I try to read these threads with an open mind, but I have to say the majority of the comments on this one seem to have been written by "conservatives" who are one rivet short of a wing, as we used to say in the aerospace industry.

Speak You don't speak to anything but hate as evidenced by your post. The woman lost her mother and instead of doing the "christian" thing what do you do? You spew your hate!!!! My mother always told me "if you can't say something nice DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL!

Speak You don't speak to anything but hate as evidenced by your post. The woman lost her mother and instead of doing the "christian" thing what do you do? You spew your hate!!!! My mother always told me "if you can't say something nice DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL!